Requiem (2 page)

I let my nightgown drop to the floor, and
then stepped into the shower, sighing as the stream of water poured
over my face.

Jared walked in, and leaned against the
sink, crossing his arms across his chest.

“
Everything okay?” I
asked.

Jared shifted uncomfortably. “It’s you I’m
worried about.”

“
The fall semester is
getting ready to start. I have extra classes, and with my
internship, it’s probably just stress.”

“
I don’t understand it,”
Jared said. “It’s been months since any of…
them
have come around. This is the
least I’ve seen of them in my entire life, and yet you’re…,” Jared
rubbed his neck. “It doesn’t make sense for you to be having these
dreams now.”

“
Jared, people have
nightmares all the time without demons present. It doesn’t mean
anything,” I said, scrubbing shampoo into my hair.

“
That’s what you
think.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, c’mon. You’re blowing
this out of proportion. If I promise to quit having the dreams,
will you promise to quit freaking out about them?”

“
You’ll promise to quit
having the dreams,” Jared repeated, his voice thick with
sarcasm.

I poked my soapy head from
the shower curtain, lather dripping down my face. “Okay, I can’t
promise, but you’re giving me a complex. Unless you know something
I don’t, they’re
just
dreams.”

Jared smiled, and wiped the line of soap
from my forehead, promptly kissing my lips. “Okay. They’re just
dreams.”

I nodded in approval, and then closed the
curtain. “I have to stop by the office today, do you mind?” I
asked, knowing he would.

“
You mean more than any
other day?”

Escorting me to Titan Mercantile was just
another day at work for Jared, but as often as I asked him to come
in, it had become an inside joke between us. Every day I asked, and
every day he politely declined. For years the halls of Titan
Mercantile were walked by Jared’s father Gabe. Jared didn’t talk
about it, but I assumed his refusal to go in had to do with
unresolved feelings concerning his father.

The hours before dawn crept by slowly, and
after my shower, Jared and I spent the remaining moments of
twilight at the breakfast table. When the morning sun finally poked
through the blinds, I smiled at the glowing light painting
rectangles against the walls. I had spent hours staring at those
walls, waiting for my leg to heal. Beth visited infrequently, busy
decorating her new apartment, Kim had taken her summer vacation on
the road, and Claire was relentlessly eliminating any threat to us.
Jared spent much of his time warding off loneliness, and keeping me
entertained. We had grown closer, and life had been more normal
than ever. The only reminder of the night I almost died was the
scar on my thigh.

Jared working busily in the kitchen caught
my eye, and I listened to the pan pop and sizzle with our
breakfast. He placed omelets on the table along with a small stack
of mail.

“
Anything interesting?” I
asked as he thumbed through the envelopes.

Jared paused, eyes narrowing as he read over
the handwritten address.

“
What?”

“
It’s for you,” he said,
sliding it toward me.

The top left corner explained Jared’s
expression. It was from Ryan.

By Jared’s expression, I knew it wasn’t good
news. “You already know, don’t you?” I said, pulling out a single
sheet of notebook paper.

“
I have an
idea.”

“
Something you should have
told me by now,” I accused, scanning the letter quickly.

Dear Nigh,

I wanted you to hear it
from me, but don’t know how to say it, so I’m just going to write
it. I’m not coming back to Brown. I talked it over with an Army
recruiter and I feel that it’s the best place for me at this point.
I know you better than you think I do, and right now you’re feeling
guilty. Well, don’t. You’re happy and that’s all that matters to
me, and that’s the truth. I’m sorry you have to find out in this
stupid letter, but everything happened kinda fast and I didn’t have
time to call. Take care of yourself, Nigh. I’ll think about you
every day.

Ryan

The letter slipped from my hands and fell to
the floor, quiet and slow. The numbness was unexpected but welcome;
I knew the guilt that would soon wash over me would be
unbearable.

“
He left.”

Jared touched my hand. “Claire called. He’s
doing well.”

“
Claire’s
gone?
” I wailed,
standing up from my seat. Anger was always preferable to pain.
Jared took a step toward me, but I stepped away from him. “You
didn’t even let me say goodbye to her! To either of
them!”

Jared’s eyebrows moved in. “He wanted to do
this, Nina. You couldn’t have stopped him, anyway.”

“
But you knew it was
happening,” I said softly. “You should have told me.” The lack of
sleep was already wearing on me, and my body felt heavy. I didn’t
have the energy to be angry.

My eyes drifted to the letter on the floor.
“This is my fault.”

“
Nina, no.”

I nodded. “I did this. I broke his heart,
and he couldn’t stay here,” I shook my head. “I should have left
him alone. He’s going to die out there.”

“
Ryan made his choice,”
Jared said.

His dry tone was hardly convincing. He had a
right to be angry, watching his fiancé anguish over the man she was
meant to be with. To Jared, Ryan being Claire’s Taleh meant that I
belonged to someone else, and I used that to drive Jared away when
I thought being with him meant putting his family in danger. My
brilliant plan had been enough to drive Ryan to join a war halfway
across the world. No matter what Jared said, or how much he hated
to see me upset, he wasn’t sorry to see Ryan go.

Angry as I was, the only one to blame was
me, and we both knew it.

I shook my head. “I have to get going. I
have to get those documents faxed by eight.”

Jared sighed. “If I had told you, what would
you have done besides worry?”

I pulled my purse over my shoulder. “I don’t
know,” I said, pulling out my cell phone. I scrolled through the
address book until I found Ryan’s number, and then held the phone
to my ear. As I expected, his voice mail immediately answered.

The sound of his voice made my insides
wrench, but when the beep cued me to speak, my temper kicked
in.

“
I need you to call me.
Call me right now, I mean it. I just got your letter and you can’t
do this. You just can’t. You’ve got to call me so we can figure
this out. Please.”

Jared took the phone from my hand and let it
slowly close. “He’s not going to get that message, Sweetheart.”

“
I had to try,” I said,
opening my purse for him to drop the phone inside. “Someone had
to.”

Jared touched my arm. “He’s the safest
enlisted man in the Army, Nina. He has Claire.”

“
And how is that going to
work, exactly? Has Claire joined the Army?”

Jared smiled. “No. We’ve talked about this.
She’s keeps an eye on Ryan the same way we were allowed to train.
We have connections.”

“
That’s not the
point.”

“
I know,” Jared said,
opening the door.

I didn’t kiss him when I passed through the
door, or when he opened the passenger side for me as he always did,
or before he left me for the driver’s seat. He didn’t attempt to
apologize, which he only did when he felt he was right. Knowing
that infuriated me further.

“
I’m sorry you’re angry,”
he said.

I glared at him. “That’s lame and you know
it. You didn’t tell me Ryan had enlisted in the first place! You
didn’t let me say goodbye to Claire! Sorry I’m angry….” I muttered
the last words and crossed my arms, settling into an unyielding
foul mood. When Jared didn’t reply, I peeked at him from the corner
of my eye. He was trying not to laugh.

“
This is
not
funny,
Jared!”

His mouth immediately flat-lined. “I didn’t
say it was, you’re just,” he shook his head as he pulled to the
curb of Titan Mercantile, “trying to be angry, with a series of
annoyed expressions on your beautiful face; it’s amusing—I’m
sorry.”

“
Stop being sorry, and
start being…I don’t know! Sorry!”

A corner of Jared’s mouth rebelled and
turned up slightly before he straightened it again. “Have a good
day.”

I slammed the door, beyond trying to have an
argument with him. At times it was maddening how in love with me he
was.

I took a few steps toward the building and
then stop. I returned to the Escalade and sighed. Sheepish, I
opened the door. “Are you coming in?”

“
Not today,” he
smiled.

Jared had spent endless hours at Titan
Mercantile as a child, and it was his least favorite place to go
with his father. It didn’t help that the other employees stared at
him as if he were a zoo animal. They couldn’t figure our
relationship out, although most of them knew that Jared was Gabe’s
son, and my security.

Seeing Gabe shadow my father was just
another day at the office when my father walked the halls, but now
that it was apparent that I needed protection, who also happened to
be my fiancé, it began more than one string of rumors about my
family.

One of my fellow interns in particular,
Sasha, had an immediate interest in Jared. She wasted no time with
the saccharine-laced pleasantries; on the contrary, she was
downright hateful to me on the subject.

“
So…Jared….” she began as I
walked into the office we shared. She eyed his Escalade from the
window as she spoke.

“
I have a lot to do,
Sasha.”

“
He protects you?” When I
didn’t answer, she walked over to stand in front of my desk,
tapping on it until I looked up. “From
what
?” she said, dubious.

I glared at her long nails clicking against
the wood, and then up at her. “I’m busy.”

“
But he’s your boyfriend,
right?”

“
No.”

“
No?” she said, her voice
an octave higher.

“
We’re engaged.”

“
Isn’t that, you know, a
conflict of interest?”

“
Not really,” I said,
thumbing through a stack of papers.

“
I just don’t get it. I
mean,” she puffed an airy laugh, “I realize you’re the princess of
Titan Mercantile, but don’t you feel a little ridiculous when you
stand next to him? You’re such an odd couple.”

Recognizing what she meant,
my head jerked up, and my eyes narrowed. “
Excuse
me?”

Sasha shrugged then, running her finger
along the edge of my desk as she slithered around me. “Doesn’t it
make you self-conscious? Women must be throwing themselves at him
all the time.”

“
Not really, no,” I snapped
as she walked toward the door.

Sasha smirked, backing away from my glare.
“Hmm. Very interesting.” Her long, red ponytail flicked as she
turned the corner, and I felt the heat radiate from my face.

On cue, my phone rang.

“
Everything okay?” Jared
asked on the other end of the line.

I covered my eyes with my hand, attempting
to calm myself before I spoke. “Everything’s fine. It’s…Sasha was
just here.”

“
Oh. That explains it. Is
she leaving her coffee mug on your papers, again?” Jared chuckled.
For whatever reason, it amused him that the woman got under my skin
in such a way that I couldn’t think straight.

I sighed. “No. She’s…I can’t say what I want
to, so I just won’t.”

“
You do own the company,
you know. You don’t
have
to work with her.”

“
Right now I’m an intern,
Jared. And…,” I sighed again, watching her flirt with the human
resources manager, “don’t tempt me.”

“
Think you could slip away
a bit early today?” Jared asked.

“
Probably. Why?”

“
It’s your first day back
to Brown tomorrow. I thought we could get on the bike and head to
the Oak tree, have some lunch.…”

“
The Oak tree…?”

“
The one I’ve wanted to
take you to…where my father took my mother.”

I smiled. “That sounds fantastic, but I have
a meeting, first.”

“
Right,” Jared said,
pretending he’d forgotten.

I straightened my skirt at the waist, and
then pressed the button for the third floor. My entire last day of
freedom could have been spent with Jared, but Mr. Patocka asked
that the interns come in for one last meeting before school began.
Some of them were leaving, and he needed to redistribute
responsibilities. I had looked forward to this meeting all week,
only because it was Sasha’s last day. That alone was cause to
celebrate.

“
Interns,” Mr. Patocka
began, looking through the papers in his hand. He always
said
interns
as
if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“
Anna, Brad and Evan will
be leaving us, leaving Shannon, John, Nina and Sasha with new
responsibilities. I would like to say…”

Mr. Patocka’s words blurred together after I
realized he’d put Sasha in the wrong category.